


That's what Vest Friends do

by saybyebus



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014), The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Picture book, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 06:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18089198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saybyebus/pseuds/saybyebus
Summary: Emmet is willing to forgive Rex for what he did. The others...maybe not so much. An alternate ending, as told through text and photos.





	That's what Vest Friends do

**Author's Note:**

> I know everyone and their brother has done the Rex Doesn't Die AU. But what's one more, huh? I'm bringing something unique to the table this time.  
> I wrote this with simple vocabulary and an easy little plot on purpose. It's supposed to have a children's picture book aesthetic. All photos were taken by me in my college dorm, using my personal LEGO collection.  
> This is not a ship fic. Deal with it.

Rex had almost gotten away with his plan to get everyone put away in Stor Ahg for good. He tricked Emmet into destroying the wedding of Batman and Queen Watevra-Wanabi and causing Ourmamageddon, then threw him to the barren planet Undar of the Dryar system. But Lucy came back for Emmet, because she cared about him. That’s what a friend does.

“You came back for him,” Rex said. He had a hard time understanding why she would do that. He was an Emmet from another dimension where Emmet had listened to Lucy and toughened up. But maybe that wasn’t what he was supposed to do after all.

“I made a mistake,” Lucy said. “I forgot that the kind, happy Emmet was the Emmet I loved. That was the Emmet we needed, too. It’s over, Rex. He will never be you.”

“I know that,” Rex said, “and you’re right. I really messed up, didn’t I?”

Lucy nodded. “I mean, you did--”

“But you’re sorry, aren’t you?” Emmet asked him.

“Yeah. I messed up,” Rex admitted.

“That’s okay, we forgive you,” Emmet said. “Now’s your chance to be a good guy and -- Whoa! Lucy! What are you doing?”

Lucy walked up to Rex and, while he was distracted, put a pair of handcuffs on him!

“Hey!” he shouted, and he yanked at his chains to try freeing himself. But they stayed put. He wasn’t strong enough to break them.

“Emmet might want to forgive you,” she said, “but I don’t! You’re a bad person, and you don’t get to walk away from this just ‘cause you said you were sorry. I’m going to make sure you get punished for what you did.”

“Lucy, don’t do this,” Emmet pleaded with her. But it was no use.

Lucy pushed Rex to make him get moving. She started leading him away, out from Undar. Emmet didn’t know where she was going to take him.

“Wait up!” he said. “Where are you going?”

Lucy didn’t stop for him. “A place where Rex will have a lot of time to think about what he did.”

Emmet didn’t want to be left alone at Undar without Lucy, so he followed her. He followed her as she led Rex away, far away from Apocalypseburg or even the Systar System. Where was she taking him?

At last they climbed a tall, cold mountain. It was guarded by giant, loud animals called Furbies, and there were no other minifigures around for miles. The only signs that minifigures had been here before were the chalkboard that said “Don’t Open, Dead Inside,” and an empty medicine bottle.

Lucy forced Rex to go inside the medicine bottle, and she put on the cap tightly. It was just the right size for one minifigure to be locked inside. Now it was Rex’s jail cell.

“This is the Forsaken Place,” Lucy told Emmet and Rex. “No-one ever goes here. Which means no-one is going to come here for you, Rex.”

“No!” Rex yelled. “You can’t do that to me.”

“We can,” Lucy said, “and we will. Come on, Emmet. Let’s go.”

“Lucy, wait,” Emmet said. “I don’t think we should do this. It doesn’t feel right.”

“He deserves this, Emmet,” she answered. “He almost got everyone put in Stor Ahg forever.”

She started to walk away. Emmet walked after her, even though he did not really want to. He knew what had happened to Rex before this -- he’d been left behind in Undar of the Dryar for years, alone and forgotten. Now it was happening to him again. Didn’t Lucy understand how much it would hurt him? But he had to go. So he did.

“Hey!” Rex yelled as they walked back down the mountain. “Where are you going? Get back here!”

They disappeared down the mountain slope. First he had been angry, but now he was afraid. He breathed heavily and his heart beat fast.

“Wait! Don’t leave me. Please, don’t! Don’t leave me behind...no...don’t...not again--!”

It was too late. They were already gone, and they wouldn’t come back.

At first he tried to escape. He threw himself up against the walls and punched them over and over again, hoping they’d break. The medicine bottle, though, was made of stronger stuff than him. He did it over and over again for hours. Then he sat down on the floor and gave up. The sun set, and the moon rose. Then the moon set and the sun rose. He watched it happen again and again. He’d lost track of the time. All he knew was that no-would would ever save him, just like how no-one had saved him last time.

At least, that’s what he thought. Then he heard someone’s little plastic feet pitter-pattering on the mountain...

“Rex?” asked a voice behind him. It sounded familiar. Rex glanced back to see who it was. Emmet stood outside the medicine bottle, looking very sad.

“It’s you,” Rex said. “What do you want? Are you here to stare and laugh at me?”

All that time alone had made him bitter. He had forgotten that Emmet would never do something like that. Emmet was far too kind to do a cruel thing like laughing at a hurt person.

“I’m here to help you,” Emmet told him. “I couldn’t leave you behind.”

Rex sat up straight when he heard that. He wanted to believe it was true, but at the same time, he just couldn’t bring himself to be hurt once more. Emmet leapt at the medicine bottle and grabbed on. He held on tight to the white cap as he rocked it back and forth. It reminded him of the time he escaped the Think Tank to save his friends. He was here to save a friend this time, too. Back and forth he rocked, until the bottle finally fell over with a big crash. Rex toppled to the floor of his prison, thrown this way and that by Emmet’s monkeying around. He still remained trapped.

“Hey! What gives?” Rex shouted, feeling dizzy. His had banged his head on the walls of the bottle when Emmet tipped it over, and it hurt a lot! It hurt so much, in fact, that he didn’t even notice as Emmet turned the bottle cap to pull it off.

Now, Rex could crawl out of the bottle, but he was still handcuffed. He wouldn’t get very far with his hands chained together. Luckily, Emmet had thought ahead. He was smarter than others gave him credit for. He pulled a bolt cutters out of his pocket. Then he stopped. Had Rex really learned his lesson, he wondered. Was he really sorry?

“What are you waiting for?” Rex grunted. “Cut off these cuffs.”

Snap! Emmet used the bolt cutters to break open one wrist shackle. Rex turned his newly free wrist and grinned.

“Ah-hah!” he said. “Now you’re talking.”  


Then Emmet cut off the other wrist shackle and tossed the handcuffs aside. But before Rex can do anything else, he took his alternate self by the arm.

"Rex, I'm freeing you on one condition,” he said.

"What?" Rex frowned. He was disappointed that his rescue came with strings attached. He just got free from one set of chains, and now Emmet was going to put a bunch of rules on him? He thought it was super unfair.

"You gotta promise me you'll be good,” Emmet told him. “I'm giving you a second chance. Just...don't waste it, all right?"

That seemed fair enough. Instead of Emmet trying to be more like Rex, maybe it was time for Rex to try being more like Emmet. That was his older, softer, better self.

“I’ll do it,” he told Emmet. “I’ll be good.”

“Awesome!” Emmet cheered. “Let’s go back home. I’ll say you’re with me if anyone gives you a hard time. And...and I can build an extra room in the Dream House, and you can live there. You can introduce your raptors to Unikitty!”

Rex liked that idea. “Radical!”

They shared a laugh. Rex raised his hand for Emmet to high-five.

"Vest friends?"

"Vest friends!"


End file.
